A lil 1:1 beater build

[the_ocho]

hey all, Picked up my 92 xj on sunday. 4.0 5speed 2 door nothing special. All of it was there and all was stock so I couldn't complain for $800. 212K on the clock and it runs/drives great. Front end is a lil loose but that was to be expected.

Plans are a mild build, it will be a DD but get wheeled all the time. so prolly a 3" on 31s locked front and rear. The P.O. who is a good friend of mine called up his dad and had him piece together a 4.5" cage offroad kit form what was left over in the warehouse after they closed up shop. just got to get it shipped down from Oregon. so possibly ill go that route. Im half tempted to go find some 2 in spacers and shackles and call it a day but we will see. just want something thats on par with my old runner, stock and locked and would go anywhere i dare drive it


Just got it in the drive way and started ripping it apart. the driver upper hinge is almost completly ripped out. was welded before and now was just holding on by 1 of the 4 sides. as a result the P.O. would just slam and kick the door shut rather than pick it up. So i ripped the door panel off and had to replace all the plastic snaps that held the door linkage together. now all that works great just gotta get out the welder and fix the hinge. then ripped the panel off the rear hatch and fixed why that wasnt opening. Im contemplating pulling the doors for the summer but Id have to make some sort of kill switch because it doesnt need a key in the ignition to start.


then went to the parts store and grabbed some oil a filter, gear oil, valve cover gasket and assorted other junk. started cleaning up the engine then ripped the valve cover off to replace the gasket. topend didnt look too bad for the mileage.



got it all back together seafoamed the thing then dumped a quart of ATF in the engine and drove it around the block a few times. then changed the oil.

Monday came the front and rear diffs. fluid didnt look to bad and wear looked good. 3.07 gears in there.

after that came some trimming. relocated the Vac canister to under the hood and trimmed the front fenders, havent done the back yet gotta go pick up some more cut off wheels



tuesday I did a tune up plugs, wires, cap, and rotor. since plugs were out did compression test. all cylinders were around 140 psi. put it all back together and went through and put dielectric grease on all the connectors in the engine compartment.

Wednesday I trimmed up the rear wheel wells and did the cut and fold on the quarters then painted them up since half the paint decided to come off. Ill prolly end up doing the whole bottom half black but this will do for now. Oh and i ordered some 2" coil spacers. just gotta build a leaf pack that gets me 2" to match then slap in some lockers and get 31s and build bumpers sliders and skids.

[greggreg2011]

sweet dude.....need i say more

[theloudone]

for $800 you stole it.

[the_ocho]

And the lift is in. Mind you I have $30 bucks invested into this lift total. It should hold me over till i get the 4.5 kit. this is some free AALs I got off a guy on a forum and some coil spacers. getting me 3 in the rear and 2.75 up front. its gonna settle so ill be happy if i get 2 over all

[theloudone]

how much do you have invested total right now? i wish i would have seen it so i could have bought it

[the_ocho]

800 for the truck
10 for plastic things for the door linkage
50 for valve cover gasket(not required i just hate leaky vehicles)
new fluids oil, diff stuff like that prolly like another 50 or 60
spacers 30
title transfer stuff like that lets say 50
Cut-off wheels 10

Id say around 1K so far. tires will be another 800 and lockers about 600. I need to get a tie rod out of a zj since XJ ones are hollow and bend if you look at em wrong so lets say another 200 rebuilding the front end. need to get some ZJ shocks for the lift maybe 100 for that another few hundred in spare parts ujoints axles drive shafts and what not to carry on the trail. but all this stuff is down the road.. about 1K got me a Daily driver with AC and somewhat ok gas milage that is capable offroad. granted it was only 800 cuz it was from a friend of mine. I was looking on CL for xjs and the crappy trash ones were like 1500

[the_ocho]

a bit of an update, got my browndog motor mounts installed, got some new shocks in. new belt, idlers and other standard stuff. made some quick discos for the front sway bar oh and picked up some sliders. was gonna make my own but too good of a deal to pass these up

[the_ocho]

Did the bitter springs trail today with some wranglers. fun easy trail did the whole thing in 2wd other than when we were ****ing around on the rocks. had one guy get a lil tippy in his stock wrangler




almost got it flexed out. the rear still had more to give

plenty of room in there to stuff some 31s



getting tippy. his rear wheel was like shoulder height off the ground we all jumped on the back and he backed out. I tried to get him to go forward and finish it. he could have made it



oh and figured out why my belt squeals only on the highway and why it leaks oil only after a highway trip.
here is a pic of my balancer from the bottom up

the rubber is worn out and let the pulley move aft and started cutting into the timing cover.. good i guess cuz i was planning on replacing the front seal and balancer because of the leak bad because now i have to replace the timing cover

[Erbing]

Looks like you have a fun project truck...keep us updated.

[the_ocho]

well picked up some "2in" coils the other day off of CL. I couldnt find a part number on them but he said they were 2 in rancho coils so i figured id give them a shot. got them in and wow these things are stiff haha. I had no problem flexing out on the stock worn out coils but you can tell these are stiffer. put them in with my 1.75 spacers and it sits at the perfect height. Of course I cant run it at this height so the spacers will be coming out for a while. need to get an adjustable track bar and control arms to run at almost 4 inches but at that height I might as well go long arm. It made up my mind for me and the 2 inches for a while until all the little things are fixed then do a 4.5" long arm set up. the nice thing about cherokees is they are a dime a dozen and they are all the same short of axle and tcase models so whatever i build on this will bolt up to another one when this one dies.
heres some pics with the coils and spacers in

[the_ocho]

some more updates maybe? ok ok here ya go. quick trip out to apex with my friend and his ZJ. the ZJ was built by 4wheeler magazine project "Aint it Grander"
Link to magazine build
(poser shots as his front drive shaft is in my garage and 2wd locked doesnt get you far in the dunes)




then today I ordered a Iron rock offroad double shear track bar kitlook here

then picked up a Tie rod out of a ZJ with a V8 which is solid rod Vs the XJs hollow broom handle tube. nice lil upgrade.

and i finally lifted the back to match the front. no good pics of that tho but lets just say it took alot of heat to get those bolts out


crappy shot

and the resulting pinon angle, cant complain


and yeah what mod will i do next.. who knows

[greggreg2011]

looks great so far man. pics look cool and hope to see more. i saw you were pricing tires, what are you thinking? oh soo many choices!!

[the_ocho]

well I really want some 33s but it being my DD and it haveing a D35 rear end for now Im probably going to put it on 31s either some BFG Ats or some general red letters mounted on some soft 8s or V5 wheels

heres a pic with 33/12.5 Micky Thompson bajas on it

[the_ocho]

got the IRO track bar in today. man its nice to have a tight, straight front end again haha. I never thought id be so happy to be able to drive 65 again


and some bump stops I had left over from when i went from 4 to 6" of drop on my ram.


I have decided on 33"s so I have a new rear axle lined up hopefully ill pick it up this friday money permitting. once i get the tires ill be able to make bumpstops and then measure for shocks. 33s on 3 inches of lift is no small feat on a XJ so this will def be a low COG rig with lots of droop

[the_ocho]

did a lil trail the other day







and took it to cali and back, got like 23-24MPG, not bad for a beat up pos lol